ABSTRACT
The exposure of natives analyzed in the previous chapter went hand in hand with colonial attempts, often timid and haphazard, at reforming their legal system, which included family law. This in turn triggered a reaction among some Algerian men eager to stave off the kind of acculturation that characterized the Young Algerians. Yet the French meddling with shari'a or Islamic Family Law was until the mid-fifties no more than a footnote to it. It was not until the war of dccolonization began that French legislators attempted to remedy the most glaringly gender-unequal aspects of the law, as will be discllssed below. In general, native culture did not hold any equivalent of the Indian sati or Chinese foutbinding that wuuld have provided the French with the opportunity for spectacular intervention to illustrate the struggle between "civilization" and barbarism. The veil gave colo· nists the stuff to imagine exotic tales, but did not otherwise bother them.
